What Happens Next in Venezuela—and the Rest of Latin America?
NEWS | 07 January 2026
Venezuela will remain under US control following the arrest of Nicolás Maduro. That was Donald Trump's message during a press conference held at his Mar-a-Lago compound after US forces launched an offensive against various military targets in Venezuela early Saturday morning. The operation culminated in Maduro's capture. In the briefing, Trump stressed that his administration will not allow someone “that does not have the good of the Venezuelan people in mind” to take control of the country. “We have had decades of that. We are not going to let that happen,” he said. “We are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition.” Trump explained that the leadership of Venezuela will be in the hands of high-ranking US officials, including secretary of state Marco Rubio and secretary of defense Pete Hegseth. At the same time, María Corina Machado, considered the main leader of the opposition to Maduro and Hugo Chávez and recent winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, issued a statement in which she said that opposition party figure Edmundo González Urrutia must immediately assume the presidency of the country. “This is the time of the citizens. Of those of us who risked everything for democracy on July 28 [2024, the date of the last Venezuelan presidential election]. Of those of us who elected Edmundo González Urrutia as the legitimate president of Venezuela, who must immediately assume his constitutional mandate and be recognized as Commander in Chief of the National Armed Forces by all the officers and soldiers who are part of it. Today we are prepared to enforce our mandate and take power,” the statement says. The text was republished by Gonzalez Urrutia himself, who made a direct appeal to the Venezuelan population: “Venezuelans, these are decisive hours. Know that we are ready for the great operation of reconstruction of our nation.” Trump appears to have other ideas. At Saturday's press conference, he indicated that his administration has plans to rebuild the Venezuelan oil infrastructure and recover the oil that, according to the president, was “stolen” from the United States several decades ago. “Venezuela unilaterally seized and sold American oil, American assets, and American platforms, costing us billions and billions of dollars,” Trump claimed. “We are going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure … and start making money for the country.” Trump's statements mainly refer to the expropriation process promoted by the Venezuelan government in 2007, during the presidency of Hugo Chávez, when numerous foreign companies from different sectors—especially those linked to energy, oil, and gas—were nationalized. Over the years, this policy has hampered the development of the Venezuelan oil industry, despite the country's widely recognized economic potential in this sector. Venezuela has the world's largest crude oil reserves, estimated at over 300 billion barrels yet to be extracted. However, a significant portion of this oil is located in offshore fields or deep underground deposits and consists of heavy and extra-heavy crude, making its extraction technically complex and financially costly for state-owned companies. Currently, the country produces around 1 million barrels per day, a figure far lower than the nearly 3.5 million barrels it reached in the late 1990s, when it was among the world's leading producers. Maduro’s Arrest and the “Donroe” Doctrine Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, explained during the Saturday briefing that the mission to capture Maduro was called Operation Absolute Resolve. The operation involved the deployment of more than 150 aircraft that took off from 20 land and sea bases. Caine stated that the undertaking was “discreet, precise, and conducted during the darkest hours of January 2, and was the culmination of months of planning and rehearsal.” Trump, for his part, asserted that the US military is prepared to launch a second, more far-reaching attack if necessary. However, he acknowledged that “the first attack was so successful, we probably do not need to do a second, but we are prepared for a second wave.”
Author: Fernanda González.
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